About Me

 Autobiography, or How My Taste Came to Be

   For the first fourteen years of my life I didn't consider myself to be a very musical person. Sure, as a hobby I would sing popular songs, had a year or two in choir and orchestra, and took two or three years of piano lessons; but I never imagined I would be such a nut as to make my own website for it and stuff. 

   Most of my earliest experiences with music came from other media, namely video games and television. At a young age my dad let me borrow a DVD of music videos by Weird Al Yankovic. Sure the lyrics were fun, but it was his profound embrace of pop music whatever the genre — be it folk, R&B, electro, rock, or hip-hop — which convinced me that all these sounds were worth platforming and paying tribute. All music is of equal importance no matter how it sounds. Soundtracks for the video games Guitar Hero 2 and Tony Hawk's Underground 2 gave me decent exposure to a lot of "alternative" music, but television scores taught me emotional cues — what emotions I should feel as told by the music. Essentially, I learned the intentions of music through film. When a thriller's score made droney or dissonant sounds in a scene of anticipation, I'd remember that association of intent, that a drone isn't just a long boring note, it's supposed to cue suspense and anxiety. Slower songs are usually sad, a camera looming over some desolate character staring out a window, their eyes reflective of their troubles and worries. Faster songs are usually full of optimism or activity, like a sports montage of a champion fighting through obstacles they'd finally overcome. 

   For many years music was just a background treat for writing or drawing sessions. I believe this is how music is for most people, where the music is at best a type of air freshener. Its best function was to give a passive and pleasant atmosphere, and if the music would ever be too distracting or weird, I wouldn't like it, because I just wanted it to fill the air while I focused on something else. 

   Luckily, a miracle happened in my childhood that coincided with my obsession with SpongeBob Squarepants: the release of the novelty album The Best Day Ever. An album poised as a transmissions from radio show in Bikini Bottom punctuated with intros and interludes of DJ banter, fake ads, and interviews between every song. It was my first encounter to a "concept album." A program of songs with thematic intent, sequenced with purpose, rather than thrown together like a reckless compilation. I suddenly realized that albums can be something more than just a playlist — it could be intellectual, creative, and exciting. 

   Aside from Yankovic, my first favorite musician was Johnny Cash. In that time I had never been so drawn to a singer's presence before. His low baritone could croon and boom at once, a "man's man" kinda voice that sang of hardship and sorrow, like a gothic John Wayne. I learned how singing lyrics can be lot like an actor reciting a script — the personal strengths of the performer adding to the personality of the song narrative. Furthermore, this showed me how songwriters exploit the emotional cues from music to enhance the movements of its stories: the swell of orchestral strings can make a lyrical twist ring with more resonance than if you had read it in monotone silence.

   I was around 10 or 11 when my dad decided to let me inherit his old mp3 player loaded with the Beatles' greatest hits from 1962-65. I still remember the first day I used it, felt like the same time I learned the value of working with earphones in. It was autumn and I was raking leaves. It was cold and dirty, and worse, the air was stirring an attack of allergies at my throat and my nose, so I was guaranteed for some temporary misery. But instead I spent the afternoon absolutely star-struck. I was experiencing Beatlemania, and my ideal of musicians changed for the better and also for the worse, probably, because then I never shut up about music. But a band had finally conquered my senses. I couldn't just listen to them, I had to look up interviews, watch their films, and go out of my way to learn about them. They weren't just musicians, they were inspirations. Artists whose personalities evolved and curiosity expanded into new territories over their active years.  They were my first sample of how rewarding it could be to obsess over music, and teach me how pleasurable it can be to learn about musicians more deeply. 

   I enjoyed looking up journals and web articles that validated my love of the band. By high school I was a devout reader of Rolling Stone magazine, whose list of the 500 Best Albums of All Time pointed me to more musicians to consume and scrutinize. Then their list of Top 100 Artists (which I read just to see the Beatles at #1) would point me to another artist who would, as a graduation from Beatlemania, permanently change my perspective on music again; whose rough first impression one me would solidify an attitude that ugly surfaces can offer amazing depths. (Or to put it less dramatically: first impressions are overrated.) 

   It was Bob Dylan. My dad had another greatest hits set to let me borrow and said Dylan had a grating voice, but it also had "character." I could not listen to a single song without cringing. Mostly for his voice's intense, obnoxious, and untrained moaning. However, his lyrics struck me. In this time I had taken a special interest in creative writing, so I noticed a rather playful eccentricity in his wording and vocabulary. The song that busted my bias against his voice forever was Positively 4th Street. The melody, stylized beyond a combination of folk, garage-rock, and blue-eyed soul, casts a long-winded recitation against this vindictive portrait of just, a lousy friend. Dylan's vocals are bitter, as if the song makes up all the words he bottles up every time he sees this person approach. Positively 4th Street offered more than a jangly rhythm and hollering melody, it depicted a moment as emotionally complex as real life, and in a disarmingly honest way, so unflattering to the character of Dylan, showing himself as a spiteful person. Whether you would agree with platforming these feelings or not, Dylan had made a cathartic exhibit of an otherwise unpleasant aspect of human life. He had turned his suffering into communion. 

   From this point on, I distrusted any negative impressions I had with things unless I gave myself time to digest them. Had I followed my instinct to turn away from Dylan's work because of his voice, I would have missed the sincerity born from its ugliness. Exploiting the discomfort in the unfamiliar stimulates the mind. To be "weird" is the essence of tapping into something that is unfamiliar, or at least what hasn't been homogenized to the point where it's dull to the senses. This virtue prepared me for the experimental and avant-garde, because from thereon, every time some media upset me, I'd be fascinated rather than disgusted. I re-examineed that which confused or frustrated me. It sounds like work, but it didn't feel like it to me, since I found the effort to be ten times as rewarding. Not saying that completely frustrating or confusing music is great, of course, but it is worth reflection just to see if the confusing qualities are actually nuances to something real, but uncommon. 

   As my experiences with music grew and grew, I started to get so insistent with my judgement that I pursued essay writing and criticism about different media until it culminated with this site.

   Beyond these pursuits though, a producer and rapper from the Dallas area (known as "Sup3r8") invited me to write promotional literature for a label and musical collective in Nashville. I visited and participated in an episode of the group's podcast (which you can view here) but I also met an intern over there who connected me with an online magazine that would publish my first music article about the hip-hop composer Impossible Nothing.

    Then, I moved to Nashville to join them, struggling to meet the right people to collaborate with. I could be in the wrong circles, but we'll see if I can't make videos or do something bigger than sit on my hands dreaming up here. The fight goes on. 

Instruments I Play (badly)

• • Vocals - folky croon or new wave/nervous punk style

  • Guitar - rock or post-rock style

  • Bass guitar - post-punk grooves

  • Piano - basic chords

  • Synthesizer - gooey bleeps or droning pad sounds

  • Recording/Production/Programming in FL Studio

  • **Beginning to Learn** Saxophone

    Artists I Have Seen Live  (headliners only)

• • 100 Gecs (2023) *

  • Acid Mothers Temple (2017, 2018) ***

  • Advance Base / Casiotone for the Painfully Alone (2018) *

  • Anamanaguchi (Scott Pilgrim tour, 2022) ****

  • Animal Collective (2022) *

  • Billie Eilish (2024) **

  • Black Flag w/ Mike Vallely (2023) **

  • Bob Dylan (2016, 2022) *

  • Brian Jonestown Massacre (2022) *

  • Built to Spill (2019) *

  • Chat Pile (2024) **

  • Chrome (2018) *

  • Cure (2023) *

  • Danny Brown (2023) *

  • Death Grips (2017) ***

  • Deftones (2025) *

  • Dinosaur Jr (2016) *

  • Dweezil Zappa (2016) **

  • Fear Factory (2016) **

  • Flaming Lips (Bubble Concert, 2021) **

  • Flipper w/ David Yow (2019) **

  • Gang of Four w/ Dave Pajo (2022) ***

  • Gojira (2016) *

  • Hank Wood & the Hammerheads (2018) *

  • Jesus Lizard (2024) ***

  • Joan Jett (2021) *

  • Jon Spencer (2019) **

  • Jpegmafia (2021, 2023) ***

  • Kikagaku Moyo (2022) **

  • Kiss (2020) ****

  • Lemonheads (2024) *

  • Lingua Ignota (2022) **

  • Liz Phair (2018) *

  • Lydia Lunch (2022) *

  • Machine Girl (2023) *

  • Magnetic Fields (2023) **

  • Mars Volta (2025) **

  • Martin Rev (2022) **

  • Melvins (2025) *

  • Mercury Rev (2022) **

  • Meshuggah (2022) *

  • Ministry (2017) **

  • Mr. Bungle (2024) *

  • Napalm Death (2025) **

  • Neil Young (2015) ***

  • Nick Cave (2018) ***

  • Nicolas Jaar (2019) *

  • Nine Inch Nails (2014) **

  • Panchiko (2024) *

  • Paul McCartney (2014) **

  • Primus (2024, 2025) ***

  • Residents (2016) **

  • Ringo Deathstarr (2016) *

  • Rolling Stones (2019) ***

  • Roxy Music (2022) **

  • Sanctus Real (2006) *

  • Sarah McLachlan (2018) *

  • Shonen Knife (2018) *

  • Skinny Puppy (2023) ***

  • Slowdive (2018) *

  • Soul Coughing (2025) **

  • Soundgarden (2014) **

  • Squid (2024) *

  • St Vincent (2022) ***

  • Steely Dan (2014) *

  • Stereolab (2019) **

  • Swans (2016) ***

  • Ty Segall (2025) *

  • Unsane (2023) ***

  • Unwound (2023) **

  • Vampire Weekend (2024) ***

  • Weird Al Yankovic (2007) ****

  • Wilco (2025) **

  • X (2024) *

  • Xiu Xiu (2019) ***

  • ZZ Top (2024) *

Asterisks rate my experience at each event, * being average, ** being good, and *** being outstanding